


a kiss in the rain

by beetle



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Homeless, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Child Abandonment, Child Neglect, Emotional Hurt, Fenris has never had good things, First Kiss, First Love, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, Hawke is all the good things, Holding Hands, Hopeful Ending, Implied Teen Polyamory, Kirkwall (Dragon Age), M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Modern Thedas, Multi, Muteness, Romance, So he's long overdue, Teen Romance, This is a romance, This isn't a tragedy, Trauma, True Love, awkward Fenris, fenhawke - Freeform, runaways - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-20 02:30:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11911338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: “Jesse” never speaks. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t angry. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t have alotto be angry about. Varric and the others are concerned. They always ask how “Jesse” feels, in the hopes that he’ll at lastspeak, because they care more than almost anyone has. But he never speaks. Hecan’t. There’s so much to say, and the words get so bottle-necked in his mind and mouth, tangle his tongue so terribly, that it’s easier and best to say nothing at all.Fenris is the only one who hears that—who hears “Jesse” clearly—and understands him perfectly, without either of them having to say a word.





	a kiss in the rain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ghostofshe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostofshe/gifts), [thewickedkat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewickedkat/gifts), [stitchcasual](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stitchcasual/gifts).



> Notes/Warnings: Runaways living on the skids. Implied parental neglect/abandonment. Trauma-based, psychosomatic muteness. Happy and hopeful ending.

 

 _Sometimes, the anger just builds,_ Garrett Hawke wants to tell them all, even _before_ he puts a large and rather pointless hole in the ageing plaster of the small, junky squat’s living room wall. But, as per usual, he can’t.

 

 _After_ putting a large and rather pointless hole in the ageing plaster of the small, junky squat’s living room wall, Garrett Hawke can only stare at that hole. And shake with rage. And pant. Loud and harsh and uneven.

 

But he can’t speak.

 

He can feel the eyes of the others on him, wide and shocked—even the ones who know him best in this group don’t yet know him _well_ . . . merely _well enough_ to know that such a display of temper is unusual for the gangly-tall, newest boy who grimace-smiles easily but never, _ever_ speaks—and doesn’t turn to look at any of them.

 

Why should he? He may have everything to say, but he has no way of saying it. Unless one is fluent in fist-through-wall.

 

So, he simply stares at the hole he’s made in something defenseless and inoffensive, and accepts that whoever he once may have been, the person he is now, is someone who’s at best useless and outcast, and at worst, a destructive monster even when he doesn’t mean to be.

 

And, these days, it’s increasingly difficult _not_ to mean to be. It’s the only power left to him . . . the only power he’s _ever_ had: the power to wreck and destroy. And even that is only as old as the loss of everything he’d ever loved.

 

Until five months ago, he’d been powerless his entire life. Now . . . he’s heartily sick of his own power. Of the anger that seethes just under his skin and has done for probably longer than nearly half a year, but has lately done more to keep him alive than the one, bland meal per day he’s assured of from the local Chantry kitchen.

 

It is _powerful_ , this anger . . . and seductive. But cold. And it may, in fact, be despair, turned outward for the sake of his own sanity.

 

“Jesse?” Isabela ventures from a safe distance behind him, returning him to the moment at hand. _Jesse_ is the only name anyone knows him by, anymore. And he doesn’t need to look Isabela’s way to imagine the rare look of concern on her lovely face, framed by thick, curling dark hair. She isn’t that much older than him, Hawke senses. She may even be legal, if only barely. But she has an air of maturity and worldliness that makes her feel like a much older woman. Like the older sister Hawke’d never wanted until he’d met her.

 

To either side of her, as always, sit Zevran and Merrill, Isabela’s closest companions. Hawke thinks they’re in some sort of romantic relationship, the three of them, and though he’d found that strange at first, now, it’s rather comforting and gives him hope. Through them, he’s learned that a chosen family, even an unlikely one, can become a necessary substitute for blood-kin. He admires the net of closeness they extend to the others around them and, more specifically, he envies them the comfort they’ve found and can take in each other. He covets their closeness and trust, whether it is, in fact, that of lovers or simply of siblings.

 

He can’t remember what that sort of closeness would feel like. Not exactly.

 

“Jesse-dearest,” Isabela says again, with another pause, this one slight. “Are you . . . _alright_?”

 

Trying to control his accelerated breathing, Hawke shrugs—more of a full-body twitch-shudder, than a shrug—shaking his head once. He doesn’t know if that’s in answer to her question or negation of the premise of the question, itself.

 

 _Alright_. A laughable and nonexistent state, if ever there was one. And _if_ it even existed, _Hawke_ certainly couldn’t pick it out of a crowd.

 

“He’s clearly not, Iz,” Varric says in his rasping-low, vaguely paternal voice. He’s the one who’d dubbed Hawke with the placeholder name of _Jesse_ all those months ago, when it became obvious that Hawke wasn’t going to be offering up his name, or any _other_ words. Varric had, after nearly a week of Hawke’s shy, but affable silences, declared that their newest companion _looked like a Jesse_ , and since that night, that’s what they’ve all been calling Hawke. What Hawke has grown used to “answering” to. “Somethin’ on your mind, kiddo?”

 

Still that semi-paternal concern. Hawke knows that the older boy is likely at least a few years beyond the age of majority for Kirkwall, but for whatever reason, he still keeps company with a bunch of street-rats minors. And if Varric were any other boy—man— _young_ man—that might be a bit odd and creepy. But then . . . Hawke’s always had good gut instincts when it comes to people and their motives. The only thing about him that’d bred true from the Amell side of the family, to his mother's, and eventually her new husband’s dismay.

 

If there’s one thing Hawke knows about Varric—the only thing, really, other than, with that accent, he must’ve spent much of his formative years in Orzammar—it’s that he genuinely _cares_ for the street-rats he’s all but adopted, and means them nothing but well. Takes care of them as best he can, like any fond older sibling, with a . . . minimum of brotherly mockery and amusement.

 

Even the only other member of their little family who is also, Hawke suspects, beyond the age of majority for Kirkwall—though _not_ for Tevinter, the place his high-brow, northern accent marks him as being from—grumble and glare dourly at Varric’s humor though he does, he listens to Varric’s seemingly random bits of dispensed street-wisdom with patience and grave consideration. With respect and keen attention.

 

The kind of consideration and attention that are now focused entirely on Hawke, or so he senses. _Feels_.

 

And, as ever, since having met the somber, intense, and utterly distracting young man who calls himself _Fenris_ , when Hawke feels that weighty attention on him, he shivers and loses the plot. Doesn’t forget why he was so angry, exactly, merely watches and lets the anger settle as it is eclipsed by another feeling entirely. One that he’s felt from the first time he looked into Fenris’s emotive, but unreadable green eyes, and which has increasingly been growing in the five months since then.

 

Suddenly, Hawke is no longer angry, just confused. Lost and sad and lonely. And _confused_. His broad, prominent shoulders—as underpadded and raw-boned as the rest of Hawke’s long, lean body—sag and he lets his head hang a bit. Dirty, past-shoulder-length dark hair curtains his long, thin face like a shroud. He can only stare at the hole he’s made in the damp, crumbling wall of their shelter, and feel guilty and stupid, clumsy and oafish. Like some pathetic sort of troll or ogre.

 

“Listen, Jesse, buddy . . . while we all appreciate your unorthodox attempts to beautify our cozy little squat . . . the fewer egresses the rats have to get out of the walls, the better, no?” Varric’s voice is easy and seemingly unconcerned, but Hawke can still read the hesitance and worry. Knows that Varric’s merry, pale-brown eyes are at their most paternal, right now.

 

“Death-by-rabies _does_ sound like a most unfortunate way to go,” Zevran agrees and, as ever, his smoky voice and Antivan accent make Hawke smile. He’s always wanted to see Antiva. See the _world_ . . . had dreamt of little else, once upon a time. And then his father had died and his mother had brought her grieving children—an almost thirteen years old son, and eight years old twins, a boy and girl—to Kirkwall.

 

It had been more of the world than Hawke had ever seen, up to that point. And now, it’s far more than he has a desire to see, ever again. He misses Ferelden. Misses people who sound like his father, like Malcolm Hawke, rather than like his mother and her brother. And her new husband.

 

He half-thinks that’s why he fell in with Varric’s little crew. Not a single one of them sounds more than a bit like Kirkwall. They all sound like other places, places that Hawke doesn’t yet hate, like he _hates_ Kirkwall. Places he still has illusions about, and which might still be wonderful and magical and clean, _unlike_ small, dirty, _corrupt_ , fucking _Kirkwall_. . . .

 

Absently shaking out his vaguely aching hand, Hawke finally turns to face his new family, and sees the concern and fondness in their eyes. Something that might be both even shines out of Fenris’s intent green eyes and leavens the keen intensity of his gaze.

 

As ever, Hawke’s heart beats faster. Ridiculously so. He even opens his mouth, certain that this time, something might actually come out.

 

Everyone’s eyes widen at this. Even Fenris’s, his dark brows lifting a bit in genuine startlement.

 

But all that comes out after nearly a minute is a frustrated huff and soundless growl.

 

Everyone except Fenris seems a bit disappointed. Not surprising. Hawke’s always been a disappointment to those whom he cares about, and who care about him. Thankfully for them both, Fenris probably doesn’t care _much_ about him either way, and thus, is spared the grim eventuality of that all-too-common disillusionment.

 

Fists clenched once more, Hawke strides past his worried friends. They’re all sitting on crates or sleeping bags on the dusty-dirty living room floor of the abandoned cottage they call home for the time being. Hawke rarely sits, anymore. He stands or stalks. Or, on occasion, sleeps. Though never well or deep or long.

 

“Don’t take on, so, Jesse!” Merrill’s soft, lilting voice calls after him, gentle and kind. Hawke shakes his head in denial of her plea, without realizing he’s doing so.

 

“Let him be, for now, Merr,” Varric murmurs, barely audible over the pounding of Hawke’s rabbiting, wobbly heart. Then Hawke’s budging the heavy, rotting front door open and stepping out into the rainy-gray late afternoon.

 

#

 

“The consensus was, that you had been out here, catching your death and brooding, for long enough,” Fenris explains briefly from behind Hawke.

 

The other boy pulls the rotting cottage door shut as easily as he’d no doubt opened it—when it rains, the porous, unsealed wooden slab gets ridiculously weighty, to the point that Merrill can’t open it on her own, and even Varric has to put his shoulder into it. But Fenris never has any trouble opening the door, rain or shine . . . he’s far stronger than his compact size would suggest, which thrills Hawke—and makes his way across the shallow, narrow porch. Hawke is sitting, soaked to the skin, on the somehow still-stable porch swing. It’s never so much as creaked even when Isabela, Merrill, and Zevran crowd into it on the nicer spring evenings, rocking and giggling amongst themselves.

 

It hadn’t made a sound as Hawke had sat his reluctant, but suddenly dead-lead _tired_ , bony-long frame in it.

 

It likewise makes no sound when Fenris sits next to him. Neither of them are at all wide at any point below their shoulders, so there’d be room for another two of them, if they were all very friendly. As friendly as Isabela, Merrill, and Zevran, say.

 

But he and Fenris _aren’t_ that friendly, even just one each of them. And never will be, despite Hawke’s silly dreams and romantic notions otherwise.

 

He sighs morosely, but soundlessly, as ever, and they sit in silence for long minutes, Hawke’s long legs and big feet bracing the swing in the still nadir of its arc, and listen to the rain that assaults the ancient city—this ancient world—but has little power to truly cleanse it.

 

After a while, Fenris’s moon-white hair becomes wetted and droopy from rain, his faded-black skinny jeans, his stretched-out, secondhand black jumper, and his brown rayon windbreaker growing damp. Hawke’s own wavy dark hair has long-since gone beyond its usual humidity-frizz to dripping, and his outfit of dirty-saggy blue jeans, grey t-shirt, and big camouflage-green jacket that’d once belonged to Malcolm clings unpleasantly to all of him.

 

“I . . . am not well-versed in the giving of comfort or succor. Nor have I ever attempted to be a shoulder for anyone to lean on . . . or an ear for listening,” Fenris finally says, his low, marrow-churning voice soft and quiet, and vaguely nonplussed. Maybe even a bit ashamed. “But Varric seems to think that you might respond to such an overture from _me_ , if no one else. And if that is, in fact, the case . . . then consider the overture made. And sincerely.”

Hawke’s hands, the dully throbbing left one that rests on his thigh and the chilled right one on the edge of the swing, clench with the ache of wanting and the frustration of never having.

 

 _I love and admire everything about you. And I may not know_ much _about you, but I know you’re tough and strong, smart and quick, clever and beautiful. And I would give anything to know more, besides,_ he would say if he could. If he could open his mouth without a million other things, nonsense-things, sad-things, rage-things, trying to tumble out at the same time, bottle-necking in his throat and choking him into silence.

 

Hawke hangs his head a bit, glancing down at his bony-big knees, from the rain-swept lane on which their cottage sits. On the eastern outskirts of Kirkwall, this small quasi-suburb isn’t exactly tone-y. But it’s relatively safe, since there’s precious little of worth coming through it or stopping to set a spell. This district is known for its surfeit of pensioners, the downwardly-mobile, runaways, and folk who’ve just plain given up. It’s the sort of neighborhood even the constabulary doesn’t waste time patrolling.

 

He can feel Fenris sneaking considering glances at him every so often, and almost feel the heat leaching off the other boy, even in this chill, damp spring. Hawke, himself, is always cold. Has given up trying to be warm. No matter what he wears in cold weather, he’s always a giant icicle. He’s always been that way. He’s never truly warm except on days that everyone else finds miserably hot. Days when even the ice that lingers in Hawke’s blood and marrow thaws and melts.

 

Or whenever he happens to be very near Fenris.

 

Though, that latter state of being doesn’t happen as often as Hawke might like.

 

“If you do not desire to . . . express your thoughts and feelings, then I will still be your shoulder and ear, should you choose to use them, _however_ you wish to use them. That being said . . . I do not mind silences and will not take offense if you choose to keep this one,” Fenris adds, with a sigh and, when Hawke dares a quick look at him, the other boy is smiling wryly, his prominent, somehow elegant profile dagger-sharp but also unusually . . . soft. Understanding. And his mysterious, moon-white tattoos seem to glow even in the drear and gloom.

 

He is . . . utterly magnificent. And Hawke is quite beside himself, in body and spirit, merely to be in Fenris’s presence.

 

That keen gaze ticks to Hawke’s so suddenly, Hawke doesn’t even have time to blush and demurely look away. So, he’s caught in that burning-bright, beauteous green, and unable to do anything but flounder and try to remember what comes after _inhale_.

 

“I must admit, you make me feel positively chatty, Jesse. A minor miracle, by my reckoning,” Fenris notes with one of his rare displays of dry, self-deprecating humor. Hawke blinks and huffs out a surprised chuff of silent laughter. It sounds rather like a middling asthma attack.

 

Mirth flickers in those mesmerizing eyes and Fenris’s smile widens in a crooked, hesitant grin. Fenris’s hand, on the swing between them, clenches on the edge of the peeling wood, then slides a bit closer to Hawke’s bitten-nailed hand. Fenris’s is about the same length as Hawke’s, which is odd considering Fenris’s overall size, or lack thereof, though his palms are wider and squarer. Hawke is at least six inches taller than the other boy—and still not done growing, if Malcolm’s height of six-five breeds true—and even for his current height of six-two, his hands are slightly larger than proportion would warrant, despite being as narrow as the rest of him. But on Fenris, such hands, though pale and with gracefully tapered fingers, rather than Hawke’s matter-of-fact blunt ones, seem cartoonish and ridiculous. Or should.

 

But to Hawke, they simply seem strong and protective. Capable and gentle. He dreams about those hands taking his and holding them. Warming them. _Keeping_ them.

 

Hawke dreams a _lot_ of things and always has. Another way in which he’s like his father. He’s always recognized that similarity, and knows that others who had known them both saw it, as well—his mother and her new husband, especially. Yet it had been a surprise of the most painful and bitter kind when Leandra had given in to her husband’s decision that her oldest son would _not_ be going with the rest of the family when they moved to Val Royeaux.

 

She had let her husband relay that startling news to her firstborn, and though she’d been present when he did, she hadn’t once looked Hawke in the eye. Nor had she, since before her second wedding.

 

Since shortly after Malcolm’s death, truth be told.

 

And now . . . now, Hawke is alone. Sometimes, he misses Bethany so much, thinking about her makes it difficult to breathe. The same goes for his mother and Carver, though the difficulty breathing is the result of far different feelings. There’s so much rage and betrayal mixed up in his deep, but bruised and bewildered affection for the latter two, unlike the pure-joy _love_ he feels for Bethany—always in his corner, always his champion _Bethany_ —that Hawke knows he’ll never untangle the mess of it.

 

Not that it even matters, now. He’ll never see any of them again. Hadn’t even got to say good-bye to Bethany and Carver. Carver, of course, probably hadn’t been bothered, but Bethany worries so about Hawke . . . always has. . . .

 

He blinks and returns to himself to catch a surprising look of unhidden concern on Fenris’s face. In those amazing eyes.

 

“Jesse,” the other boy begins, awkward, but gentle, his hand shifting, lifting, then settling closer to Hawke’s. Close enough that their pinkies are touching. Fenris’s is warm and almost dry. Hawke’s is clammy and wet, which he only notices in contrast to Fenris’s. But the temperature difference is only one of the reasons that Hawke gasps and shudders. Why an actual _sound_ escapes his bitten lips, small, rasping, and choked, like the hoarse, desperate squawk of a dying crow.

 

Fenris’s wide eyes grow wider, then he blinks, his mouth opening just a bit in his shock. Hawke, meanwhile, makes that brief, pathetic bird-sound again, then looks down at their touching hands. For an eternal moment, his entire being resounds with all his needs and wants—most of which will be forever beyond him, except for maybe _this one_. This one, which is so very close to being met, he can’t help reaching for it . . . even though he knows better than most that reaching for one’s dreams always ends badly. Always ends in tears and grim wakefulness.

 

Always _ends_.

 

Hot tears roll down Hawke’s long, thin face, cutting tracks in smudgy smears created by ever-present dirt and the persistent rain. He opens his mouth again, _needing_ to give voice to everything that’s in him, and has been from even before he stopped being able to talk. That’s _been in him_ since meeting Fenris, five months ago.

 

Even another pathetic bird-noise would be sufficient, after years of nothing at all but helpless silence.

 

This time, however, nothing comes out, and Hawke draws in a shuddering, frustrated, angry, _despairing_ breath that nonetheless clears his head. Ushers out the fog of depression, shock, and loss that’s surrounded his every moment for longer than he’d have ever thought he could bear.

 

 _Damn the words_ , he thinks, unaware that he is, in fact, making a sound again, though that sound does not form a word. He’s _growling_ , rough and flat and resolute. And he watches, half-outside his body as he shifts his hand, butting Fenris’s lightly, then intently, trying to shove his pinky under Fenris’s.

 

Hawke has no idea what he’s doing, but he’s determined to do it. Something which is obvious to Fenris, it seems, for the other boy’s hand twitches, then reluctantly lifts just a bit. Just enough.

 

Hawke slips his hand under it—under the shelter of Fenris’s warm, strong hand—and lets it rest there, but for his thumb, which he stretches up and over, until it barely brushes Fenris’s pinky.

 

It’s several held-breath moments before Fenris’s hand settles on top of Hawke’s lightly. Then a bit more heavily. Then curls around Hawke’s tentatively, before _closing_ around the soft, cold hand and softer, colder fingers, his own so callused and coarse and perfect.

 

The sound that escapes Hawke’s parted lips this time is a soft, weary sigh of relief. He’s never had a dream come true before, and wants to ask Fenris if it always feels so vivid and wonderful . . . and better than one is capable of imagining.

 

He means to ask this and more, if he can—and if Fenris can, in fact, speak Dying Bird—but doesn’t get the chance to try his luck. Fenris’s hand tightens around his own, squeezing companionably, then _possessively_ , then in a clear bid for Hawke’s attention. And when Hawke looks up into those wide eyes, he’s stunned still and silent by the panoply of emotions in them. He’s never seen behind the walls in Fenris’s lovely, lucent gaze and yet has always fancied himself to be lost to that green. _In_ it. Given over in his totality to the soul behind it. Now that he’s seeing some of what lives at the heart of Fenris, in the soul that animates that complex stare, Hawke _knows_ himself to be lost and given over. Forever.

 

And even _that_ ambitious timeframe isn’t nearly long enough, Hawke suddenly understands.

 

He sees so much in that gaze . . . more than he can read on first or even third glance, not that he’s able to look away even once. He sees a pain that matches and meets his own. That understands his own and would share that burden without reserve or hesitation.

 

He sees a loneliness and an unfamiliarity with even basic affection that breaks his heart, and he also knows that he would and _will_ do his best to ameliorate that staggering wrong. That he will be _whatever_ is necessary, whatever it _takes_ , to light the darkness that lingers in those eyes and in the overlooked, under-loved, but implacable— _magnificent_ —heart that beats within Fenris.

 

Here, before Hawke, is a person who has lived without love for so long, he probably doesn’t even recall the taste of it, if ever he knew. And Hawke . . . remembers that taste, that love so well, so _keenly_ —wants _so desperately_ to lavish all of the love that still exists in his heart on someone, the way he only ever has for Malcolm and Bethany, both of whom are now lost to him—that its sheer exquisiteness brings more tears to his eyes.

 

And he understands that he’s found, in Fenris, a purpose at last, and not merely a kindred spirit with a broken heart and a gorgeous soul.

 

 _I will share my love with him. I will teach him the taste of it, and brand that knowledge on his heart and soul, so that he never again forgets. So that he_ always _knows. And I will be there to remind him for as long as he allows me to. To my dying day and beyond._

 

“Jesse,” Fenris rumbles, his voice gone thick and a bit creaky. Nervous and younger than Hawke’s ever heard it. And Fenris’s piercing, vulnerable gaze drops from Hawke’s in a flutter of dark lashes and frightened consternation. As if Fenris has lost his nerve or his courage. Or perhaps is feeling the towering doubt that Hawke has always been bedeviled by, but never more keenly than when it comes to the boy still holding his hand so tight and anxious.

 

But Hawke cannot find that doubt, anymore. Cannot even remember the shape or hue of it, in the enormity of _this_. Of Fenris’s heart shining out of his eyes for blessed, beautiful moments. Of Fenris’s strong, hopeful grasp of his hand. Of the epiphany that sometimes . . . _sometimes_ dreams can not only come true, but they can do so happily, joyously, ecstatically.

 

And, Maker willing, they _never_ have to end . . . on this side of the grave or the other.

 

Hawke is, for the first time in his life, unafraid. He has worlds to win and conquer. He has a wild and gorgeous conundrum to tame to his hand and heart and love. He has something precious and fragile, and worth all the risks he’s never dared to take and all the things he’s never dared to say. And he has no time for fear or doubt.

 

He has _Fenris_ , or will, if he can keep being brave and true.

 

So, when Fenris manages another croaking: “Jesse, I. . . .” Hawke huffs out a harsh, soundless grunt that makes the other boy look up with questions in his remarkable eyes.

 

Hawke huffs once more, impatient with himself, and this time, another sound comes out: “ _Awwwwg_.”

 

Fenris’s dark brows shoot up and he blinks rapidly in confusion, and because of rainwater dripping from his moon-colored hair, into his eye.

 

“ _Errrrgh_ ,” Hawke cudgels out of his rusty throat, then licks his lips—Fenris’s eyes dart down at the small motion of tongue-tip, and linger on Hawke’s lips with a ponderous, hungry flicker—and tries again, stilling his mind and heart.

 

For once, he has the right things to say. The right word. The right sound, even. If he can master himself for long enough to get it said. And he means to. If he does nothing else right or well in his misbegotten life, he means to do this one thing.

 

So—for once—sitting in the rain, but not lonely, Hawke speaks _one_ word, and one word only. And his _soul,_ into that word, he _does_ outpour . . . even as he wonders what that word will be.

 

“ _Haaaaawwww_ ,” sighs out of him, shaking, mournful, and whistling. Fenris looks completely gobsmacked, but Hawke smiles, letting out a gusty breath on which is a belated: “ _Kuh_.”

 

In the silence that follows, the rain begins to fall more intensely, though it’s not quite sheeting. _Yet_. It’s spring in Kirkwall, after all, and torrential rains are always only a matter of time.

 

“Haw-kuh.” Hawke forces out again, blinking rain out of his dark eyes. Forcing even this tiny bit of order through the chaotic maelstrom within him _hurts._ It pains his throat and brain and heart. But though that pain is deep, it’s also cleansing. And worth it.

 

 _Fenris_ is worth it.

 

This is Hawke’s truth, and it shines from him. Beams, like the light of a sun through the vast, dark vacuum of space, or a light house across turbulent, midnight seas.

 

And it does _not_ go unanswered.

 

“Is,” Fenris starts to say, his brow furrowing then clearing as he smiles, too, small and wondering. He’s listing slightly, but definitely toward Hawke, now. “Is that . . . your name, then? _Hawke_?”

 

Hot—happy—tears coursing down his dirty, already wet face, once more, Hawke nods several times, enthusiastic and excited. He feels like a new, but bright star: small, perhaps, but untarnished and hopeful. Full of potential. His free hand, which comes to cover Fenris’s where it still clutches Hawke’s, is warm, indeed. Far warmer than it’s been in a very long time.

 

And Fenris’s tiny, uncertain smile is growing wider slowly, but visibly. _His_ other hand covers Hawke’s other hand, and he swallows, his gaze darting to Hawke’s lips and back to his eyes between blinks.

 

“Hawke,” he murmurs, as if tasting the word and savoring it. Then his hand lifts off Hawke’s and brushes dripping hair back from Hawke’s face, before cupping his left cheek gently. His palm is wide and flat, rough and tender.

 

 _“Guh-Garrrrr_ —” Hawke drives from his aching throat, but the second syllable, a stuttered _ehhhhhht!_ is lost on Fenris’s lips as the other boy darts in, quick as a salamander, and presses a dry, chaste kiss to Hawke’s lips.

 

When Fenris sits back, they both stare at each other, wide-eyed and shocked. But Fenris’s hand is still on Hawke’s cheek, light and reverent, and his other hand is still clutching Hawke’s tighter than ever.

 

“Hawke,” he whispers unsteadily, and this time, it’s _Fenris’s_ soul outpoured in that one word. And when Hawke smiles affectionately, with open hope and welcome, Fenris’s wavering smile firms up. Takes on both determination _and_ courage.

 

And _hunger_.

 

Oh, and those green eyes flash with passion and possessiveness. With all the fire of all the stars Hawke has ever wished upon. When Fenris says Hawke’s name again, this time in a low, snickering near-growl, it’s partially lost on _Hawke’s_ hurried, hasty lips and clumsy-eager—but _far_ from chaste—kiss.

 

And though it’s a toss-up who’s moved toward whom first, the unimpeachable fact that they still managed to meet each other roughly halfway—and will continue to do so for as long as they are able—is one thing that remains ever beyond question or doubt.

 

END

**Author's Note:**

> Ghostofshe’s prompt: _a kiss in the rain_
> 
> [Come Tumble with me](http://beetle-ships-it-all.tumblr.com)!


End file.
